Charleston Loan Exhibition

60 As the kettle stand, later referred to as an “urn stand” during the neoclassical period, was popular in England, Charlestonians imported these objects in addition to commissioning them from local crafts- men. In 1773, John Smith paid the notable Charleston cabinetmaker Thomas Elfe £10 for “Tea Kettle Stand w th a fret.” The inventory of William Roper contained “1 Mahogany Urnstand with a Japan Urn there on.” 1 The tea ceremony in Charleston, as in England, was a form of en- tertainment closely identified with the lady of the household, although both men and women certainly gathered around the tea table. The drinking of tea was accompanied by much social protocol, and there- fore required the use of specialized silver hollowware and utensils as well as furniture forms. Of the various accoutrements associated with tea drinking in America, the kettle and urn stand is the rarest of extant items known today. Silver hot water kettles, costly items found in only the wealthiest American households, rested upon these small stands placed adjacent Kettle stand Charleston, SC, 1745/1755 Mahogany H. 23 x Diam. 22 (top) inches Lent by The Rivers Collection, Charleston, SC Conservation and transportation supported by Dr. and Mrs. James C. Allen Urn stand Charleston, SC, ca. 1790 Mahogany with white pine (glue blocks) secondary wood H. 2¼ x W. 13¼ x D. 13¼ inches Historic Charleston Foundation, Charleston, SC, collections fund purchase with contributions by Thomas R. Bennett, Mr. and Mrs. John F. Hackenberg, and Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin F. Lenhardt Jr., 2007.001.01 Conservation and transportation supported by Dr. and Mrs. James C. Allen to the tea table. When the silver or ceramic urn, often with a turn spout, replaced the heavier kettle as the preferred vessel, the nomenclature of the furniture form changed. Given the size and height of these two Charleston-made objects, it is clear that they were fashioned, respectively, to be a kettle and an urn stand. Directly reflecting British rococo design, the simple pad feet of the kettle stand balance the ornate C-scroll and acanthus leaf carvings on the knee—attributed to the same Charleston carver as the Daniel Huger side chairs. The ornate rococo carving on the kettle stand con- trasts with the simple fluid lines of the neoclassical urn stand. Elegantly proportioned with a serpentine gallery, tapering legs and delicate inlay, the urn stand is based closely on plate number thirty-five in George Hepplewhite’s pattern book, The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide (1788). BSC 1. Mabel L. Weber and Elizabeth H. Jervey, eds. “The Thomas Elfe Account Book, 1768–1775, The South Carolina Historical Magazine Vol. 38, No. 3 (July, 1937), 89; Bradford L. Rauschenberg and John Bivins, Jr., The Furniture of Charleston, 1680–1820 , Vol. II (Winston-Salem, NC: The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, 2001), 720.